This is my girlfriend Jen, she’s the subject of my new year blog because we have got lots of exciting plans together for 2012 (and she has just made me a gorgeous dinner!).

The most exciting of our plans are trips to Costa Rica and the Outer Hebrides, which should both provide some great photo opportunities. Our 2012 got off to a slightly less adventurous start with an afternoon stroll around a local country park to break in new boots for our trips further afield and of course to take a few pictures!

Things have been a bit quiet on the blog recently, mainly because of all the travelling I’ve been doing, and partly because of my new toy!

After my old MX-5 died, the logical choice was to get a new one and I’m enjoying it even more than I thought I would! I’m sure there will be even more pictures of it on this blog in the coming months…

In other news I have bought myself a Canon S90, so hopefully I will be able to post a few more images from the various trips that I have planned over the next few months.

Being of Scottish/French descent a St George’s Cross isn’t something I’d normally take a picture of, but I thought the light on it was great. I was taking the scenic route home from my parent’s place and stopped at Fairfax’s viewpoint, just outside Naseby, hoping to capture the vista that Fairfax would have seen prior to the Battle of Naseby, minus all the armies etc obviously, but a farmer had dropped a huge pile of manure in the foreground of the shot, so a flag is what I took.

As I’ve already hinted at, 2010 is going to be a busy year, the motorsport season is going to start for me on the 14th February, with some rallycross at Mallory Park (being single on valentines day does have some benefits), with the Ma5da Racing season kicking off towards the end of March. As per 2008 & 2009 I will be covering all rounds of the Ma5da Racing Championship, including their add on series for the Mk3 MX-5s. When I have got more reliable dates for the events I am covering I will put a post on the blog, this should be in a few weeks after the Autosport International show.

My aims for 2010 photography wise are to get published in Autosport magazine again, get my website 100% finished and most importantly to take more photos for myself. In my personal life I’m aiming to snowboard more than I did in 2009, which shouldn’t be too tricky and to get my flat sorted out, before the 2 year anniversary of moving in. I will also make sure that I update this blog (and my development blog) more often.

I’ll leave you with a bonus picture from my new years eve celebrations, regular readers may recognise Simon, my little brother, who threw a nations themed fancy dress party to bring in 2010, any guesses as to which nation he is?

While I was at the party, my blog automatically published it’s first post, I’m a little disappointed that I only managed 25 posts this year, I was oping for at least double that, but I have got a lot of draft posts written, so 2010 should see a lot more posts, along with a slight tweak to to design to fit in with my Photoshelter site.

My main aim for 2009 had been to get images published in Autosport magazine, which I accomplished in April, on my first outing with a new camera (Canon EOS 1D mkII). The rest of the summer and into the autumn was a blur of motorsport photography mainly for Ma5da Racing, I will be their official photographer again in 2010, which with their increased grids and races for the newer mk3 MX-5s is shaping up to be an interesting and busy season.

Outside of photography things that have shaped my life in 2009 are music, I’m sat here writing this blog listening to Lily Allen’s set from a festival earlier in the year, she is certainly one of my artists of the year, a cracking album and possibly my favourite gig of the year when I saw her at the NIA. My favourite new (well new to me) artist is Frank Turner, a punk-folk singer songwriter, who never seems to stop touring, I saw him twice this year both at small intimate venues and as well as writing great songs with meaningful lyrics he seems like a nice bloke to boot!

For me the thing that has jumped out of nowhere this year is Twitter, I’ve chatted to some really great people who I may not have met otherwise and it is usually the first place I hear of any events, be they global stories or more specific to photography, I feel I’ve learnt a lot that I may not have otherwise found.

The last thing that has changed me for 2009 is hitting the gym again, after rupturing my ACL in 2008, my basic fitness level has improved no end, which has helped with lugging camera gear around race tracks, or walking into remote locations for landscape shots, but more importantly for me, it meant that 3 days ago I was able to ride my snowboard for the first time in over 18 months. On that note, I’m going to leave to computer and hit the gym.

I wish all my readers a happy and successful 2010.

PS sorry for the lack of photo in this post, if you’re lucky there may be a first picture of 2010 post tomorrow.

After 18 months of not blogging I have started this blog, which will mainly focus on my photography, with updates on what I am up to as well as showcasing recent shots.

For 2009 I will continue to follow the Ma5da Racing series, which I covered in 2008, with more cars registered for the championship this year, the racing should be closer, hopefully resulting in some great images. I will also be covering other motorsport events throughout the year.

In addition to motorsport, I am planning on taking more landscape photographs, after a recent successful weekend in the Lake District. Portrait photography will also play a bigger part this year, with a few shoots already in the pipeline.

Stay tuned to see details of my new website which should be going live soon…